Voyage LA
Raimondo Rossi alias Ray Morrison, Voyage LA, Los Angeles. Ray has been interviewed for the section "LA's Most Inspiring Stories" under "Hollywood's Hidden Gems". To see more of the works in the article, click here.
Raimondo Rossi Voyage LA
Today we’d like to introduce you to Raimondo Rossi.
Raimondo, before we jump into specific questions about your work, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Hello guys, first of all, thank you!
Life is great and I’m happy to be an inspirational story for the city of angels that have been inspiring me since I was a baby! And your magazine has such positive vibes, I couldn’t be much happier.
Yes sure, I was born and raised in the countryside in the middle of Italy, in a very traditional family and in a very closed-minded society. I got a master’s degree in maths, to be the joy of my parents that didn’t like art or literature at all. And after that, I took care of our family job: they own some driving schools and I worked as a teacher in those schools. But… my dream has always been LA and the West Coast. Do you remember the TV series “Simon & Simon”? That was my favorite and I was always dreaming to be part of California!
After many years of routine life, I started to give my attention to theatre, contemporary dance and photography, and in 2012 I was asked to be a model for a few video-art festivals and for an Italian designer, wearing his creations for high profiled Fashion events. And I got noticed by some influential people of the Fashion world and later on started to be invited to all of Italy’s fashion weeks, and then, to the ones in Paris and LA. I became accredited as a fashion influencer, blogger and photographer and now, with my acquired experience with fashion shows on the runway as well as backstage, I use my time to do photojournalism and styling. Or I also have worked as an on set creative director for my independent work as well for some international magazines. I have full control over the content of my website The Style Researcher.
And LA? I met some guys from the Citrus College in Roma in 2012, at the Lady Gaga’s concert hahaha. We became friends and kept in touch and in 2013 I already was in LA for the summer! Actually, I had a crush for a bartender from Montebello and this made me willing to be in the city of my dreams even bigger. LA is my life, even when in Italy my heart is here. Now I divide my time between Italy and LA and yes. I am in the Valley, at my second family’s house, the Hernandez.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Nothing has been easy! The place where I was born was not allowing me to be myself, my family and my ex-wife were so much traditional and starting in the fashion industry or in photography in Italy is pretty hard: they don’t want new faces and new talents. They tend to protect themselves a lot and give works or visibility just to friends or people that can be useful for them. They try to put you down.
But I made it, just being myself with no rules and no fake! And this is a lot, I have the esteem of people and now also of designers and photographers, and this is really good! I’m doing a different job, very personal: the fashion industry gives space just to some stereotypes and this can make pretty sad and depressed lot of people and this is crazy. I am working to give visibility to every form of beauty, both in photography and in my creative directions for editorials. There is a lot more than dolls and perfect dudes in the world. Everywhere I will be, this will be my personal mission.
Look also at the pic with Hollywood on my head: no trick, it’s a souvenir that was for real on my head. And the T-Shirt? Always fighting for a better world with no discriminations.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
My work consists of photography, styling and creative directions for editorials for Fashion/Art magazines (they give me a team and I write the concept and direct on set. Also, public figures can call me if they are bored to have the same classic poses or dresses/clothes when they are in magazines. We can do better and they can show they have more than just a body).
What I do in my works is to take care of beauty and feelings. No matter if I take a photo, direct a shooting, write a concept for editorials or style myself or someone: what is always present (or at least what I’d love to be present) is harmony and beauty that can touch someone’s heart and soul.
In my work “The emotions of fashion” I talked about the connections between fashion and emotions, creating images or videos to talk about dreams, homes, love, music, charisma and other realities that can be related to fashion too.
In another work, I chose naked models to talk about women’s rights.
In portraits or other photos, in display in Vogue Italy, I never use photoshop. Here in this interview, you can see 4 portraits of four different kinds of beauties, and you can see two pics taken in our amazing city, at the Union Station and in DTLA.
As you can see, everything is without photoshop. Beauty is everywhere and I am working to help anyone, famous or not, to feel his/her beauty.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
I would say that more than luck you have to be yourself and work with your heart in the right place. Some important accomplishments I had, the cover in GQ China or being selected by NZZ in “10 style icons to watch”, were given me when I wasn’t expecting them at all and I saw everything after published!
My friends told me. So I think that if you work well and you don’t copy from anyone, the right people will notice you.
Or I wanna tell you another story: I styled on a video for Cryptic Wisdom that hit over 100k views on YouTube in its first day. This was another big gift that life gave me: I have been listening to his songs for years, and he was one of my biggest inspirations and he contacted me to collaborate because he liked my works. It has meant the world to me! I thank him and life again. Little things are the most important ones! No?
To see more go to http://www.thestyleresearcher.com/catwalks